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AIR QUALITY MODELING AT NEIGHBORHOOD SCALES TO IMPROVE HUMAN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
Citation:
Ching, J.K S., A. Lacser, D W. Byun, AND W G. Benjey. AIR QUALITY MODELING AT NEIGHBORHOOD SCALES TO IMPROVE HUMAN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT. Presented at Third International Conference on Urban Air Quality, Loutraki, Greece, March 19-23, 2001.
Impact/Purpose:
The objectives of this task are to continuously develop and improve the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system, which is the science implementation within the Models-3 system framework for air quality simulation. CMAQ is a multiscale and multi-pollutant chemistry-transport model (CTM) that includes the necessary critical science process modules for atmospheric transport, deposition, cloud mixing, emissions, gas- and aqueous-phase chemical transformation processes, and aerosol dynamics and chemistry. It relies on Models-3 I/O API to support machine independent data access and maintains simple interfaces among science processor modules to provide a high-level of modularity.
Description:
Air quality modeling is an integral component of risk assessment and of subsequent development of effective and efficient management of air quality. Urban areas introduce of fresh sources of pollutants into regional background producing significant spatial variability of the concentration fields and corresponding human exposures. Typically, air pollutant concentration data in urban areas used by exposure models are from central site monitors that provide limited or no information on spatial variability. This paper describes a methodology for bridging air quality dispersion modeling and exposure approaches to provide a basis for assessing the impacts of such concentration variation on human exposures. For this approach the Models-3 Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) (Byun and Ching, 1999) spatial resolution was refined from 4km to 1.33km. This preliminary sensitivity study will illustrate human exposure to several pollutants as a function of these grid sizes. The approach sets the stage for the modeling of exposure to air toxics.